LOS ANGELES — A Houston man suspected of killing three people and seriously injuring four in a 17-day string of attacks in Southern California had been deported from the United States six times and has a long criminal history, immigration officials said Tuesday night.
Ramon Escobar, 47, is also a “person of interest” in the case of his missing aunt and uncle in Houston. Siblings Dina and Roy Escobar vanished last month and relatives told police Ramon was the last person known to have seen them.
Investigators believe Escobar drove to California from Houston after his relatives disappeared, and attacked the men in Los Angeles and suburban Santa Monica beginning Sept. 8.
Detectives seized a wooden baseball bat and bolt cutters police believe he used to carry out the attacks on his random victims, mostly sleeping homeless men.
"He's a violent predator. He's preying on innocent people," said Cpt. William Hayes with the Los Angeles Police Department. "In particular, in most of these cases, our victims were asleep, and he went up and did it.”
Escobar was being held without bail, but U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials have filed a detainer seeking to take him into custody if he is released, the agency said.
Escobar was first ordered removed from the country in 1988 and was deported to his native El Salvador six times between 1997 and 2011, ICE said in a statement Tuesday night.
He was released from ICE custody last year after appealing his latest immigration case, ICE said, but the agency didn't offer any information about his current legal status.
Escobar has six felony convictions in Texas for burglary and illegal reentry, ICE said.
Escobar spent five years in prison for robbery starting in the mid-1990s, Hayes said. Records in Texas show Escobar has had arrests for vehicle burglary, trespassing, failure to stop, public intoxication and two assaults, most recently in November 2017. That case was described as a misdemeanor.
Hayes said the attacks didn't appear to be based on any hatred toward homeless people, CBS Los Angeles reports. "I think it was a crime of opportunity," he said. " … It appears the motive in most of these cases was robbery."
Escobar was arrested Monday after a man sitting on a sidewalk was beaten unconscious and robbed of some of his possessions, Santa Monica police said. That victim remains in a coma.
He could be charged Wednesday with murder and attempted murder in connection with the series of attacks.
He hasn’t been charged in the disappearance of his aunt and uncle, but Houston detectives hope to question him soon.
Dina Escobar's burned van was found in Galveston a few days after she went looking for her brother. She was last seen Aug. 28, two days after her brother vanished.
Dina Escobar's daughter, Ligia Salamanca, said she’s heartbroken but hopeful her cousin’s arrest will lead to answers.
"The not knowing is the worst, going to sleep every night not knowing where your family is, what they're going through or if something bad happened; not having them at home to know what they're going through – to lay them to rest if that's what it comes to," she said.
Salamanca said Escobar had never shown signs of violence.
Salamanca said Escobar had been looking for work and needed a place to stay, so he was taken in by his uncle Roy.